SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

A Guide to Library Resources for Sociology 470 (formerly SOC
340)

Social Conflicts focuses on the origins and development of groups in promoting and
resisting change, resource mobilization, strategies and tactics, individual and social
consequences.

Welcome! This site has been created to assist you finding and using library resources for your
Sociology 470 research. Our library is the largest publicly funded university library in the world.
It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but it is truly a treasure trove for scholars. All of the
UIUC Library's resources are available to you as you do your research, so explore, have fun, and
don't hesitate to ask questions!

FINDING ARTICLES

Scholarly journal articles are one of the primary means of communicating research ideas. They
are an important component of academic research and give you some insight into ongoing debates and
scholarly conversations about your topic. You can find articles through database searches.

Finding articles is a two-step process:

First, search for the topic you are interested in by using the article databases listed below.

Try words to describe the concepts you are researching.

Consider searching for these concepts together.

Use the thesaurus to find additional or similar terms.

Find an article that looks interesting? Look at the article's citation for subjects use in that
database and run additional searches using these subjects.

Next, find the actual text of the articles you want by clicking on the
Discover button in a database.

If the Discover page indicates that we have online full text, click the link to get to the
article. In some cases, we may have the full text article available in multiple
databases. If the Discover page says there is no online full-text available, click the link
next to "Library Catalog- Holdings in VUFIND" to search the library catalog for print holdings.
This will show you if the library owns a copy of the journal/newspaper/book in PRINT form, and
tells you the location of that print volume. NOTE: The library catalog will show you the results by
JOURNAL title (not article title). You will need to find the year and/or volume and issue number of
the journal that contains your article.

OR

If you know the citation of the articles you want, from bibliographies or suggested readings
lists, you can use the
Journal and Article Locator to determine if
we have full-text online or in print.

Recommended Article Databases

America
History and Life - America: History and Life is a complete bibliographic reference to the
history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the
database comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic entries.

ArticleFirst
- A general index of over 12,600 journals in science, technology, medicine, social science,
business, the humanities, and popular culture. Covers 1990-present, updated daily, but no subject
indexing.

JSTOR -
An excellent source for searching the full text of older journal articles.
Hint: Select the subject area form the list at the bottom of the search page, then enter
your search terms.

LexisNexis
Academic Universe - A good source for news, business, and legal information, with full text and
abstracts. Includes foreign news sources, major U.S. newspapers, regional U.S. news, radio and TV
transcripts, and many other sources. Newspapers are updated several times daily, and wire services
hourly.

FINDING BOOKS & JOURNALS

Online Library Catalog - Look here to find
books, magazines or journals containing articles that you need, DVDs, and many other resources. In
addition to the 10 million volumes we have on this campus, you can connect to over 70 other
libraries in Illinois and request books be sent to you.

When you find something you want in the catalog, write down the following:

Location - in which library the item is kept (or libraries, if we have multiple
copies)
Call Number - this number is essential for finding the item on the shelf
Status - is it available for you to check out?

Hint: Library catalogs are used for two purposes. First, if you know exactly what you are
looking for - an exact title or author - you can use the catalog to locate your material. This
works for book titles and journal titles. Second, you can use library catalogs to discover material
that might be helpful to you by doing subject and keyword searching.

WEBSITES

Library of Congress's
American Memory digital collections are a rich collection of
primary source material relating to U.S history and culture. This site provides access to over 7
million digital items, including photographs, newspapers, sound recordings, field notes,
manuscripts, cartoons, letters, legal documents, and more. Try searching the "Social Sciences"
collection.

Annual
Review of Sociology is an annual compendium of review articles summarizing the current state of
research on a particular subject. A good way to find out what questions are being asked by
sociologists doing research on you topic. Also a good source of citations to both current and
retrospective publications. The online version allows you to search the full text of all issues
from volume 1 (1975) to present.

Social Movements and Culture is a
gateway to all sorts of information on contemporary social movements ranging from Globalization to
Gay/Les/Bi/Queer movements. It includes links to activist organization websites, as well as online
articles, bibliographies, course syllabi, and glossary of theoretical approaches to understanding
social movements. Hosted by the American Studies Department at Washington State University at
Pullman.

CITING SOURCES

Guidelines for citing electronic and print resources are available from the Undergraduate
Library's
Citation Styles guide and the
Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library's
Style and Writing Guides.

Need help collecting and organizing your citations and producing a list of works cited?
Citation management tools can help! The guide “
Citation Management Software
Overview” helps users choose a citation management tool and provides links to other guides
on specific options like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote.

RESEARCH ASSISTANCE

Ask-A-Librarian for Help with Your Research

Use our
Ask-A-Librarian Service to IM, chat, email,
phone or find a reference librarian.

Finding Your Way Around

There are over 25 departmental libraries on our campus, and sometimes it may be difficult to
determine where to find the resources you need. For your class, the library that you will be using
most is the
Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL). We are
located in SSHEL North (Room 100) and SSHEL South (Room 101) of the Main Library building. Do no
hesitate to come in and ask one of our energetic and helpful information desk assistants.